Nick Clegg Defends Phone Hacking Trial Costs

The Deputy Prime Minister has defended the cost of the Phone Hacking trial, saying you can't "put a price tag on justice".

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The Crown Prosecution service said yesterday the cost of the trial to the taxpayer - was more than £1.75 million.

With
the additional costs of the Scotland Yard investigation and Operations
Weeting and Elveden it is claimed the trial has cost around £100 million
pounds in total.

Andy Coulson was found guilty of plotting to hack phones but the jury failed to reach decisions on two other charges.

Speaking on his weekly LBC show Call Clegg the Deputy Prime Minister defended the cost.

"I don't think you can put a price tag on justice," to told LBC's Nick Ferrari.

"If
you start doing that you'll go down a really dangerous slippery slope
because you'll start saying 'do you know what, because so and so has
been able to pay very expensive lawyers to tie courts up in knots, all
too expensive, let's cut our loses and let's abandon justice
altogether'.

"I'll tell you what will happen, the rich and
powerful will be let off the hook and I abide by a simple principle, as
we all should, no one is above the law and if you start attaching price
tags to when you want to persue cases or not guess what will happen? The
rich and powerful will be above the law so I really, really would
caution against this argument."